The invention relates generally to the field of medical devices, and more particularly to a catheter used to deliver an agent to a patient's anatomy for the treatment or diagnosis of heart disease.
In the treatment of heart disease, a number of methods have been proposed in which a catheter or other therapeutic device is inserted into a chamber of the heart, and an operative distal end component of the device is used to perform the procedure on the inner wall of the heart. For example, agent delivery catheters, typically having deflectable distal sections, are configured for advancing in the patient's vasculature and into the heart chamber, and an agent delivered directly into the heart wall by jetting or needle-injecting it from the distal tip of the catheter. However, the beating heart can make it difficult to accurately place and maintain the operative distal end of the device at the desired treatment site. As a result, one difficulty has been providing a catheter that accurately delivers the agent to the desired site in a patient's heart chamber. Additionally, once delivered, truly effective treatment requires that the agent is retained at the treatment site for a certain minimum duration. In particular, it would be a significant advance to provide a catheter configured for targeted delivery of gene therapy and other therapeutic agents delivered into the heart wall (e.g., to the myocardium), or pericardial sac (by piercing the endocardium, myocardium, and epicardium) in a manner that improves agent retention.